In wake of Charleston killings, a prayer vigil for peace at the Peace Pole in Veterans Park-Taunton, Massachusetts-USA

June 24th, 2015

In response to last week’s hate-crime killings of nine people inside a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., the Greater Taunton Clergy Association held a prayer vigil for peace on Wednesday, June 24th, at the First Parish Church in Taunton, MA.  After the service, participants, processed to Veterans Park on Church Green and placed a Peace Pole and stood together in remembrance and in hope for the future.  “Over the past few days, the Greater Taunton Clergy Association has come together in conversation about this terrible act, and about all of the violence that we see and experience around us, in our communities in Taunton, in Massachusetts, and in our country as whole,” said the Rev. Christana Wille McKnight, minister at First Parish Church. “That this hate crime was committed in a church only adds to the necessity of our communities coming together to speak out.”  “I believe we are as a country capable of moving beyond these terrible cycles of racism and hatred, but it will only happen when we are all able to recognize the importance and value that each person brings to our world,” McKnight said. “There is no place for hatred in faith, nor should there be a place for it in our country. This vigil is to bring our community together and remind all of us that we are one people, and that the lines of division we might draw are no where near as important as the unity we come from and the message of love.”